Coming in November: Chronicle for iPhone

Chronicle for iPhone is currently in limited testing, with great results so far. There’s still a little bit of refinement to the interface needed, but you can get a good idea of what it looks like, and how it will work, by looking at the above screenshots.

Here are some of it’s primary features:

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Syncs with Mac version via Dropbox

Notification of upcoming bills on your iPhone

View, create, & edit your bills

Log payments, view payment history & delete payments

Pay bills online

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At release, Chronicle for iPhone will be compatible with iOS 5.0 or later, and will be ready for the new, larger screen on iPhone 5.

How Sync Works

Some have asked how sync will work when Chronicle for iPhone is released. It’s pretty simple. Chronicle for iOS will be released at the same time as Chronicle 5.1. Basically, the first time you click “Sync”, both versions will prompt you for your Dropbox username and password (Chronicle will never even see this, it goes straight to Dropbox).

You won’t need to install Dropbox anywhere. All you will need is an account, which is free.

When it syncs, Chronicle is smart about what to sync. If you create a bill on your iPhone, and a different bill on your Mac, when you sync, the list of bills will be merged. Another example: say you log a payment on your iPhone, while another user logs a payment for a different bill. When you sync, both databases are updated to include both changes.

Be The First To Know

Update: Chronicle for iPhone will be released mid-November. It has been submitted to the App Store, and an update fixing a couple sync bugs in the Mac version has also been submitted to the Mac App Store.

17 Comments

Angie
on September 17, 2012 at 6:03 pm

I love my OS desktop Chronicle and I was looking forward to having it on my iPhone/iPad. However, I’m very disappointed to hear that the only way to sync is via Dropbox and not directly from my OS software. Why would you insist that people should adopt some third party storage service and limit this great product to reach all the owners of OS Chronicle? Personally, I do not put anything on any Cloud especially not my finances. Sorry, but I will try to resist not to buy Chronicle iOS version for this reason unless you offer another option of syncing the date directly to desktop version.

So I am curious as a developer myself and a user of your awesome desktop product, why you chose to go with dropbox over iCloud for the iOS syncing? It just seem to cause somewhat of a hassle for users that may not have dropbox accounts or do not want a dropbox account. iCloud works seamlessly and effortlessly with all Mac products. I am not trying to bash your logic, more just curious why you chose this route. I will be honest I am somewhat disappointed with this as I am not a fan of dropbox. However, thanks for the amazing desktop app. I hope you are able to kick back a response. Thanks

There are a lot of reasons we chose to go with Dropbox. Although iCloud works well for document-based apps, it’s very difficult and buggy to implement for an app that isn’t document based, like Chronicle.

But more importantly, iCloud is limited to Mac App Store Apps. I.e. if we used iCloud syncing, all of our users who bought from our website would not be able to sync at all. So that would be really lame.

The way we’ve set up Dropbox syncing is very seamless. You simply type in your Dropbox username and password on Mac and iPhone, and the setup is done. You don’t have to install Dropbox or anything, you just need to create a Dropbox account, and so I think for the majority of people, it will work well.

A lot of other prominent apps use Dropbox syncing, and it works really well for them (i.e. 1Password), so I think we’re in good company. 🙂

I’m really sad that you have offered only Dropbox syncing with iPhone. No matter how easy for you it is to set it up and how easy is to use it, and how much dropbox encrypts files, sorry but it is not safe. I will never be comfortable to put my private data to sit on someone else’s server. Never. Maybe pictures, music or some other not so interesting docs., but especially financial data – never.

If you are using 1 Password as an example than please offer the same option as they do. When I use 1 Password app I only sync my laptop directly with my iPhone via my home router. Dear Chronicle, You may think to implement the same option – local network syncing. Sorry, but for me as the situation is, synching with Chronicle’s iPhone app it’s not usable right now.

Littlefins, how is the “coming in October” for the iPhone version of Chronicle going? I’m very anxious for this to complement the Mac version. I was part of your Beta group on the last Mac version and am more than happy to help out on the iOS version if you need it. Thanks.

Chronicle for Mac has brought a little extra glimmer of sanity to my life. I’m looking forward to the iPhone version. Sync through Dropbox is fine with me. Please stay out out of the App Store and keep supporting Snow Leopard.

what day will chronicle be in the app store and how much will it cost to get and will it be ready for iphone 5 and 4gen iPad and my 15 inch macbook pro retina just waiting and waiting and waiting we need the app all ready so we can check are bills.